EXCLUSIVE: Robin Williams 'I don't want the slow, agonising death of an addict'

EXCLUSIVE: Robin Williams 'I don't want the slow, agonising death of an addict'

ROBIN WILLIAMS in public was Hollywood's whirling dervish, a constant source of rapid-fire comedy and improvised one-liners. It was a very different character who checked into a special unit of Hazelden Addiction Treatment Centre in Lindstrom, Minnesota, in June.

Despite his enormous fame and wealth, Teresa tells how humble Williams remained [AP]

The centre specialises in helping long-term sufferers maintain their sobriety and, at the time, the star was said by his publicist to be merely "fine-tuning" this and gaining some respite from his relentless work schedule.

Yet Teresa Cohen, 32, the wife of a TV executive and mother-of-two whose stay at the £19,454-a-month facility overlapped that of Williams by nine days, recalls: "It was obvious there was something much, much deeper going on inside him.

"Even though he would goof around from time to time, just like he did on screen, there were many other occasions when his face reflected deep depression and unhappiness."

In a photo taken on June 29, when Williams posed with staff during a visit to a Dairy Queen ice cream parlour, he looked desperately miserable despite forcing a smile.

Teresa added: "He told me he was always pleased and proud to meet fans but felt under constant pressure wherever he went to 'wear a happy mask' and put on some kind of zany performance.

"He said he was weary to his bones and didn't believe he could really relax for a moment. 'I sometimes feel I could fall asleep standing up,' he said. It was clear that physically, as well as mentally, he was in a terrible state."

Teresa Cohen, who was in rehab with actor Robin Williams [REUTERS]

Even though he would goof around from time to time, just like he did on screen, there were many other occasions when his face reflected deep depression and unhappiness

Teresa Cohen

Her impression was echoed by a source on the set of his CBS show The Crazy Ones who said: "We knew he was struggling. We were doing a scene and it was just off. I looked over at him and, in that moment, his face changed.

"He looked so exhausted and profoundly, deeply sad. And then one minute later, he pulled himself back together and he nailed the scene. He had a depth; that's where the darkness came from but there "He looked so exhausted and profoundly, deeply sad. And then one minute later, he pulled himself back together and he nailed the scene. He had a depth; that's where the darkness came from but there was just so much there." Williams's suicide at the age of 63 last week shocked fans all over the world, young and old, whose lives he had filled with laughter and truly remarkable entertainment.

In his early years there was a lovable alien in the 1970s sitcom Mork & Mindy and his poignant performance in Dead Poets Society inspired a generation of youngsters to "seize the day".

Family fare included Mrs Doubtfire and he won an Oscar as a psychologist in Good Will Hunting. There were bittersweet roles, like those in Good Morning Vietnam and Patch Adams, and the pure comedy romps of the Night At The Museum franchise.

There can be few cinemagoers in most countries who could not reel off a list of Robin Williams's films.

Ben Stiller and Robin Williams on-screen together in A Night At The Museum [20TH CENTURY FOX]

Robin Williams in prosthetics to play Mrs. Euphegenia Doubtfire [2OTH CENTURY FOX]

As news of his death swept through Hollywood and beyond, even President Obama referenced his awesome body of work: "Robin Williams was an airman, a doctor, a genie, a nanny, a president, a professor, a bangarang Peter Pan and everything inbetween, but he was one of a kind.

"He arrived in our lives as an alien but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit."

As his third wife Susan sadly revealed late last week, Williams's spirit had been demoralised when he was recently diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson's Disease, a condition friends now say he believed may have been accelerated by the cocaine and alcohol addictions that plagued him throughout most of his adult life.

He went into rehab for the first time after the overdose death of his closest friend, fellow comedian John Belushi, in 1982. He made no secret of his struggles to stay clean and sober or of his relapse in 2005, while filming The Big White in Alaska, and re-entered rehab the following year.

He later told me how he had returned to his hotel one night and reached into his mini-bar for a miniature bottle of Jack Daniels, believing he could handle "just one drink," but he added: "Before I knew it, I had cleaned out the entire mini-bar of liquor."

Within days, his drinking was raging out of control again and he confessed: "My drink of choice was vodka. I would buy two pints at a time, one for each jacket pocket, but I had to be careful, I didn't want to be seen buying booze every day."

Fellow sufferer from Hazelden Teresa Cohen reveals: "He was in dread of dying while high on drugs or alcohol. Tears ran down his cheeks when he told me his greatest fear was relapsing and drinking himself into an early grave while his family watched helplessly."

Teresa added that the Hollywood icon and tortured comic genius told her: "When I go, I want it to be quick and I want to be clean and sober. I don't want to die the slow, agonising death of an addict who makes everyone around him suffer too. I couldn't stand the agony of checking-out that way."

Ever humble despite his fame, she said Williams was always the first person to perform simple chores, like setting stacked chairs out in an arc for group therapy sessions.

"On one occasion, he spent more than two hours patiently listening to the outpourings of a younger guy, also in the entertainment business, who was there for the first time and still 'shaking and baking' with hot sweats and jitters from his detox.

"Robin was always ready to help others and was like a fatherconfessor figure to people he thought weren't coping too well with rehab, which can be a scary, bewildering experience first time around."

Teresa, who is separated from her husband, told the Sunday Express she is breaking her own anonymity to "let the world know what a wonderful man has been lost," adding: "The truth is that, while he was such a good and kind-hearted listener, he rarely shared anything about his own innermost feelings to anyone else. He put helping others a long way ahead of helping himself."

I experienced his generosity of spirit myself when, on one occasion when I interviewed him at a charity gala, he doubled-up after we posed for photos together with macaws on our shoulders and the exotic bird on mine relieved itself all over my favourite crisp white shirt.

I could feel my face redden as he loudly announced to around 50 guests that he wished he too could respond to the Press in that way. Then he winked, told me he was "just kidding" and slipped two front row tickets to his first stage show in years into my pocket.

Williams's body was discovered by his personal assistant at the mansion in Paradise Cay in the San Francisco suburb of Tiburon that he shared with Susan, his third wife of just three years.

His three children from previous marriages, Zachary, 31, Zelda, 25, and Cody, 22, were yesterday said by an old friend of their father to be "shell-shocked" and still in disbelief that he could take his own life.

"It's agonising for them," the friend added, "they want to know why he came to such a desperate decision."

Though Williams faced enormous monthly alimony payments to his previous wives, and even joked about having to sell his mansion and "downsize" as a result, reports of him being on the brink of bankruptcy are, according to those who knew him well, wildly exaggerated.

Among at least four upcoming movie projects, aside from his CBS show, was the long-gestating sequel to his 1993 film hit Mrs Doubtfire, for which industry experts reckon he would have received a salary in excess of £8million.

By all accounts, he was looking forward to teaming up again with director Chris Columbus, who recalled of the original: "His performance came from some spiritual or other-worldly place.

"We were friends for 21 years.Our children grew up together. He inspired us to live our lives close to him in San Francisco and I loved him like a brother. The world was a better place with Robin in it and his beautiful legacy will live on for ever."